


I sought my soul (and found all three)

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:44:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is always running away, Dean is always putting the pieces back together again. An AU set in season 2, directly following 2x14 "Born Under a Bad Sign." Hurt/comfort with a bit of case!fic thrown in.</p><p><i>I sought my soul, but could not see<br/>I sought my God, but my God eluded me<br/>I sought my brother, and I found all three.</i><br/>- William Blake, 1757-1827</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Sammy was six years old he packed two peanut butter and fluff sandwiches and Mo-mo the stuffed frog into his school bag and ran away.

He made it as far as the Dairy Queen three blocks down, where Dad found him nearly four hours later huddled under the sign advertising milk for $2.78/gallon. It took three laundry cycles before the tacky mess of congealed marshmallows was completely gone from the backpack, but Mo-mo didn't make it.

After one round in the washing machine Mo-mo's green felt skin was pilled and shrunken, most of his seams pulled open and one eye was hanging off. Dean hid the ruined toy at the bottom of his duffel for three days until he got the chance to sneak out at night and give Mo-mo a proper salt and burn.

He'd told a red-eyed, bawling Sammy that Mo-mo had gone back to live with his family 'cause that's where he belonged. And that if Sammy waited long enough maybe he'd get another friend to take care of.

"It won't be same, " Sammy had sobbed into his pillow.

"No, but if everyone was just like Mo-mo then he wouldn't be so cool, right?"

Dean spent the next two weeks skimping a little on his lunch money, hiding the savings in a balled up sock in his bag. He slipped out of the bi-weekly Library period on Wednesday afternoon and snuck down to the same Salvation Army store they'd gone to at the beginning of the school year to buy sneakers and heavier jackets. He'd found a balding stuffed turtle in what Dad always called the 'miscellaneous crap' bin, and knew right away it was just the thing. Fifteen minutes later, Dean slipped back into the library with a wave to Mr. Barras, the nearsighted little old librarian who called all the boys Richie and all the girls Janie because he couldn't tell them apart.

When he met Sam outside the little kids wing of the school that afternoon, he'd smiled and said, "Got a surprise for you."

"What?" Sam had asked suspiciously, already well versed enough in big brother-ese to know that 'surprise' could mean anything from ice cream cake to noogies.

"Well, " Dean hedged, "his name is Baxter." Baxter was a totally badass name for a stuffed turtle. If you were into that kind of kid stuff that is, which Dean was not. "He's a friend of Mo-mo's."

"...really?" Sam asked, still half suspicious but a little bit hopeful.

"Really."

  
*

Five weeks after Sam leaves for Stanford, Dean cleans out the trunk of the impala. He finds the usual random assortment of plastic bags, a few empty soda cans, three dirty socks, and one wrapper for a mint flavored condom that Dean is absolutely sure is not his because _eugh_, mint? He also finds a beaten up paperback copy of _Dune_ that's stamped as property of the Milford Public Library and almost definitely belonged to Sam.

At the end of the day, Dean has a trash bag full of random junk and all the weapons and supplies are back in their assigned spots. It's a small accomplishment, but he's between hunts and Dad is off doing god-knows-what, so why the hell not.

He keeps _Dune_, reads it a chapter at a time like he's parsing it out to last. But it doesn't.

He reads the rest of the original Dune series, blows through at least a dozen Stephen King novels because in some messed up way they make him feel relaxed. He reads _On the road_ because he remembers about three years ago Sam spent an entire summer cracking weird jokes about it. He passes through New Orleans at one point and honest to god tries to read an Anne Rice novel, but only gets about halfway through before he admits that maybe Lestat could be a badass if he wasn't so much of a fucking whiner.

He picks up books at specialty shops, lifts them from small town libraries; but never as a separate errand. It just kind of piggy backs onto other shit he has to do, research and restocking and random errands that Dad sends him on. He keeps the ones he thinks he maybe didn't hate in the footwell behind the passenger's seat. The rest get dumped or donated to the nearest thrift shop.

After a year or so they make a decent enough footrest when he can't find or afford a motel for the night and gets stuck slumming it in the impala.

He's in North Carolina hunting a black dog when Hurricane Isabel hits. A telephone pole goes down and wings a nearby tree, sending snapped branches tumbling down on the roof of the impala. Dean watches from inside the motel room, cursing and muttering every protection spell he can think of.

The impala makes it through mostly unscathed. There are scratches in the paint that Dean spends a solid week bitching over, even if it only takes a few minutes to fix. The roof is the real problem. The falling branches have dented it all to hell and bent the frame. One of the back windows had buckled under the pressure, cracking enough to let the rain in. He spends a week renting space and equipment at a garage to fix it, hustling pool at every bar in walking distance to pay for space and the replacement parts. Dad could probably help, but there's no way in hell Dean's telling him he let his baby get busted up by a friggin' rainstorm.

The books are a lost cause, the rain turning them into soggy bricks of paper. He chucks them in the dumpster without a second thought and begs and cajoles Mark-the-Professional-Auto-Detailer (which is exactly how the dude introduced himself) to let him borrow the industrial strength dehumidifier before his girl starts to mildew. Mark-the-douche concedes, which maybe makes him less of a douche.

Two and a half weeks later than he'd originally planned, he blows out of North Carolina headed for somewhere dry and telling him self the phantom smell of mold is just in his head.

*

Sam doesn't comment on the new roof or the reupholstered front seat when he slides into the impala. He probably doesn't even notice, though he does stop for a second when they open the trunk to get their supplies together and automatically reaches left for a flashlight when they're on the right.

"You know, a false bottom only actually hides things if you can't tell there's a false bottom." Sam says in a tone of voice that Dean's pretty sure he must've learned from three years of intense study at Sissypants U, because he sure as hell didn't learn it from him or Dad. He rearranges some of their gear and shoves the cover back down until it's flush with the edges of trunk, lays down a couple of skin mags to further disguise the seam with a flourish.

"Happy now?"

Sam rolls his eyes.

The drive from Jericho to Stanford is silent, except for when Dean insists on blaring music. He can't get away with it all the time, he knows Sam well enough to tell that he's pretty damn close to getting out and walking 'til he finds a bus back to his girl and his apple pie life.

The drive away from Stanford less than a week later is even quieter.

*

Sam leaves again in April, and Dean tells himself Sam's not running away from anything this time, he's just trying to find Dad. It's the whole reason Sam came back; except that it's not. Because now he and Dad have more in common than just sheer bull headedness, and Dean is left doing whatever everyone else tells him to do and trying to keep everyone on speaking terms. Yeah, because he's apparently _awesome_ at that.

But Sam comes back, and it's the first time he's done it of his own free will. So that has to be a kind of progress.

Eleven months after Jericho Dean pitches him at Sarah, stupidly believing that maybe he can fix this the same way he fixed Mo-mo. If two weeks is long enough to mostly get over the loss of your favorite toy at six years old, how does the equation translate to watching the woman you love burn alive at 21? Eleven months? Eleven years?

Sam's locked up so tight with grief and guilt Dean's pretty sure the answer is never.

He kisses Sarah, kisses her like it could be the start of something. It takes Dean a week and a half of not-so-subtle hints and lewd suggestions to realize that it was all for show. Sam's own not-so-subtle way of saying 'I'm dealing, stop pushing me.'

So Dean lets it go. They drive and hunt, bicker over research and who gets first shower when they're both covered in grave dirt. Dean brings back women, because he's sympathetic but he's not a friggin' monk. Sam holes up at the library or the local bar with his laptop and gives him amused looks when he winds up with scratches on his neck or a 'Call me! xoxo' note left on the bedside table.

"She might have a sister, " Dean suggests because he's supposed to, not because he's actually expecting Sam to take him up on the offer.

*

They're three days out of Duluth and running on fumes. After leaving Bobby's they hopscotch through Nebraska and Missouri, back up and across Illinois with no particular direction in mind but _away_. Dean sticks to the back roads and insists on sleeping in the impala, at night they rock-paper-scissors for the backseat and Sam always wins.

Sam cuts up their credit cards, tosses them at a Burger King restroom and burns nearly all of the fake IDs while Dean makes a trip to the nearest Kinkos. It's a practical purge that has to be done every once in a while anyway just to be safe, but this time it's especially rough. They've only had the new cards and IDs for a month, and while making new IDs is mostly just a trip to Kinkos and a pain in the ass, new applications for the cards are going to take at least a few weeks to get processed.

They don't have a choice; there's no way to tell how much intel Meg gleaned from Sam's mind, and no way they're going to leave any paper trails for overzealous hunters to follow.

So they spend an afternoon filling out applications with names picked at random from a phonebook they snatch from a post office in Quincy. They've done it often enough over the past year, usually while bickering and pestering each other about who looks more like a "Gerard" and who looks like a "Jose." But this time they're both silent; Sam because he hasn't spoken a word since they left South Dakota, Dean because it's been three freaking days of this silent treatment shit and he's getting seriously worried. The relief he'd felt over getting Sammy back after a desperate week of searching hadn't lasted long at all in the face of nagging doubts.

Dean was an action kind of guy, talking about shit usually seemed pretty pointless when you could be doing something to fix it instead. But Sam wasn't talking about anything; how much he saw, how much he remembered, _if_ he remembered. He was familiar enough with Sam's headspace to know that the idea of what Sam might have done while possessed could be just as damaging as the actual memories. It wasn't rocket science to figure out that Sammy was chest-deep in emo guilt, but every time Dean asked, Sam would insist he was fine through clenched teeth.

"It's not your fault, you know, " he throws out there as he signs Don Ashmont's name.

Sam folds up his papers and shoves them into an envelope. "Yeah. Are we done with the Good Will Hunting moment now?"

Dean lets it drop.

They finally check into a motel just after they cross the border into Indiana, too tired and and too happy about the prospect of sleeping in a real bed to notice the name of the town. They drop their bags and tug off their boots, secure the room and get ready for bed with rituals that come as easy and familiar as breathing. Just before Dean goes to flick off the lights, they each tug their hex bags out of their pockets and slip them under their mattresses.

It's another thing they don't talk about, how they both do it in full view of the other, visual confirmation that they're both still safe. Still themselves.

*

Dean wakes up late, scrubs at his eyes until he can make out Sam sitting at the small table on the other side of the room. Sam's poking at his laptop, slight frown on his face. With any luck, he's found them another case. It's the first time they've had wireless in days, and he wouldn't put it past Sam to be checking police reports for other hunters turning up dead.

"Morning, " Sam grunts, makes a vague gesture to the paper bag and styrofoam cup on nightstand. "Got breakfast."

Dean waves his thanks, tears into his breakfast burrito. It's got extra bacon and onions and even a side of sausages, and if Dean had needed any further proof that Sam was feeling guilty, this would be it.

"You got a case or are you looking at that donkey show video again?" He asks through a mouthful of bacon, egg and cheese. Sam, champ that he is, ignores everything but the first few words.

"It's something. I don't know, it's kinda weird."

Dean swallows and goes for the coffee. "Weird how?"

"Couple of hikers've gone missing in Mason, Indiana. And get this, " he turns the laptop around to show a picture of an empty field with a clear path of dead grass running right through it.

"Huh. So, a zombie or a spirit with some serious mojo, leaving a nice trail of unholy ground for us to follow."

"Looks like."

"Sweet."

Dean gets showered and dressed as Sam packs up the car. He finishes his coffee on his way out the door, gives Sam a look as they get in.

"We had a coffee machine in the room, you know." Maybe it's just more of Sam's guilt, trying to get Dean some decent diner coffee instead of whatever crap their rent-by-the-hour motel stocks. It's not like Dean is picky about his coffee. But Sam seems genuinely surprised, like he either didn't expect Dean to notice or didn't expect him to mention it. He wouldn't, but they really are running low on cash, especially after shelling out to pay for a room last night.

Sam shrugs. "It came with the meal." And Dean feels like an ass for even bringing it up.

"Alright then, skipper. Which way to the zombies?" Dean asks as he guns the engine, flashing Sam a smile. Now that they actually know how to kill the undead, Dean is pretty psyched about a possible zombie hunt.

"Southeast, head towards Bedford for now."

Dean cranks up the music as they pull out of the parking lot.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean constantly checks on Sam; keeps a mental tally that he's kept up for so long it's become second nature. It'd fucked with his head more than a little when Sam was away at Stanford; a nagging feeling like he'd left the car unlocked or missed some vital piece of information. It's updated constantly, compared to the trends from the day before and the week before, ticker tape running in the back of his thoughts. Hours slept, meals eaten. Wounds still healing.

Sam's been eating and he's been sleeping okay as far as Dean can tell. They'd had an awkward show-and-tell moment the night before, Sam looking like a kicked puppy as he checked on Dean's bullet wound and Dean changing the bandages covering the ugly burn on Sam's forearm.

So he's quiet and a little messed up in the head, (what else is new?) but he's healthy and that's enough for now. That doesn't stop Dean from feeling like there's something missing from the tally, and it bugs the hell out of him that he can't figure out what it is.

*

When they're about twenty miles outside of Mason, Sam gives Dean a rundown on the case. A group of three experienced hikers were reported missing two days ago when they didn't come home from their trip. They had a camping permit on file but no route specified. The wife of one of the hikers had been the one to go to the police, said they'd had three cellphones with them, plus a GPS they were using to find a geocache in the area.

"A geo- what?"

"Geocache. Like a treasure hunt but with GPS and coordinates."

"So basically, they were cheating."

"It's not- " Sam huffs. "It's not about finding the treasure, it's about the journey to get there or something. Sharing the experience."

"Uh huh, " Dean replies, unconvinced.

Sam directs him to the wife's house, a light blue two story house that  looks like picture perfect rural bliss. There's a whole lot of open land around the house, so it doesn't make Dean itch the way the cookie-cutter suburbs do, but it's still a little too manicured and Brady Bunch for Dean to really feel comfortable.

"Park Service?" Sam asks as he flips open the glove box and pulls out a handful of brand new fake IDs.

"Yeah, unless you wanna try stealthily changing into suits in the car and playing Feds."

Sam snorts.

They're both a little rough looking in scuffed jackets and worn jeans, but Dean figures it'll work in their favor. Park rangers are supposed to enjoy all that camping stuff, right? They get out of the car and make their way up the front walk. There's a minivan in the driveway, so it's a safe bet the woman is at home. She's probably waiting by the phone for news.

"Emma Napier, 34. She's got two kids." Sam whispers to Dean as he rings the bell.

"Hi Mrs. Napier, " Dean says a minute later when the door opens, pulling up about as much good ol' boy charm as he can muster. "We're with the Park Service, we'd like to ask you a few questions about your husband."

The interview goes about as well as these things ever do. She's visibly upset but holding it together for the kids, and Sam kind of drops the ball on the sympathetic thing, standing back and letting Dean take the lead. It's not his strong point, but he makes do.

They don't find out anything terribly helpful, just confirmation of the stuff Sam'd read in the police report. Dean pushes a little too hard about her relationship with her husband, stops when Sam kicks him hard under the coffee table. They thank her for her time and reassure her they'll do everything they can to get her husband back.

"What the hell was that, Dean?" Sam hisses as soon as they're far enough away from the house not to be overhead.

"What was what?" Dean braces his hands on the roof of the impala and looks at Sam. "You remember Angela, she went after the people that pissed her off. If this is the same kind of thing, then maybe it'd help to know if anyone had a grudge against Joel Napier and his buddies, don't you think?"

"Yeah except...this guy looks squeaky clean. Maybe it's one of the others, hell, maybe it's a different kind of black magic and the killings are completely random. We're not even sure it's a zombie."

"Okay, so what about the other two. Married couple, Joel's sister and his brother-in-law, right?"

"Yeah. Jason and Kathy Lerner, married last year. They live across town."

"Well, since they're not home I'm guessing their house is nice and empty right now."

*

The Lerner house is a bust. No creepy dark spell books, no exsanguinated rabbits or creepy old bones. They're about to leave when Sam stops dead in the middle of the living room, staring at the pictures on the mantle. One of them is flipped down, when Sam rights it they can see a photo of an older woman, surrounded by smiling people who Dean assumes are her family.

Sam raises his eyebrows. "Pretty common custom, cover the pictures of the recently deceased."

"Coulda just fallen over. You know how much I love digging up graves, but how about we find out if granny's actually on file as being dead before we assume she's roaming around craving brains."

*

An hour later, they're sitting at the town library scanning through back editions of the local paper. Dean really hates small town libraries and their lack of internet archives. It turns out that Grandma Lerner had in fact died recently, a heart attack less than three weeks ago.

"So what's the plan?" Sam asks. "Dig up her grave, then go out and find her? We do that, we gotta move fast, someone's bound to notice."

"Plus there's three hikers out there that she may or may not have already made into a tasty meal."

Sam sighs. "How many times do I have to say it?  Zombies don't actually eat- you know what? Nevermind.  Either way they're probably already dead. The undead generally aren't sentient enough to take prisoners."

This draws Dean up short. A month ago the kid was insisting that every person he saved (or failed to save) could tip the balance and turn him to the dark side. Now there are three people missing, one of which has two little kids at home and Sam's already writing them off as collateral damage.  He snaps.

"Like you said, maybe it's not the same kinda thing we saw before. Maybe grandma isn't a zombie, maybe she's a spirit. Maybe those hikers are injured and are trying to make their way out of the woods right now. We. Don't. Know. So we're gonna assume those people are _alive_ until someone shows me the damned bodies. Okay?"

"...okay. Yeah." Sam replies quietly.

"You have the coordinates of that geocache thing?"

"Yeah. But- " Dean makes a face and Sam's hands come up in a quelling gesture. "I just mean, the police have those coordinates too. They've probably been searching the whole area around there since the report was filed yesterday. If there was anything near there to find, they've already found it."

"They don't know the things we know."

  
*

  
Dean drives back to the motel, hands clenched on the steering wheel the entire way. Three people are missing, presumed dead (it's the most likely scenario, no matter what he tells Sam.)

But Sam is looking tired, and it's more than just sleepy; like he's bordering on exhaustion. Yeah, the research bit sucked, but usually Sam was a machine at that stuff, working his way through piles of reading in the time it took Dean to stall his way through one source. Today he'd been rubbing his eyes and resting his head on his hands, digging his thumbs into his temples like he had a tension headache.

If the choice is between the lives of three random strangers who may or may not already be dead against his brother, Sammy takes priority hands down. It doesn't mean it's easy to do, putting off the hunt and leaving three people hanging out to dry. It also doesn't mean Sam is going to take the decision particularly well.

Dean pulls big brother rank when they get back to the motel, kicking off his boots and flicking the curtains shut instead of packing up supplies for the hunt. Sam stands and watches with his mouth hanging open.

"Uh, Dean?"

"I dunno about you, Princess, but I'm beat. Not all of us have our own personal chauffeur to drive us around all day."

Sam shifts the weapons bag to his other hand, still staring as Dean shucks his jeans and flips back the covers on his bed. "And what about Joel Napier and the Lerners?"

"We're no good to them if we're dead on our feet."

Dean rolls over and shuts his eyes, but doesn't go to sleep. Sam stands silent for a few minutes, he can practically hear the gears grinding in the kid's head. Finally, his bag _thunks_ to the floor and he hears Sam walk into the bathroom. He takes an inordinately long time in there, or it seems like it to Dean, laying in the dark and waiting with his eyes closed.

Dean counts the seconds, hears the water running in the sink and berates himself for overreacting. So Sam looked a little tired, he's a grown man and Dean should really stop being such a weirdo, trying to monitor his bathroom habits.

Hell, maybe the guy's taking a much needed break and rubbing one out while he's in there. Dean can almost see it; Sam running the water and biting his lip to keep from making too much noise,; he always was such a prude.

Sam might have the right idea, they could both sure as hell use a little relaxation.

The bathroom light flicks off and the door opens, Dean intentionally keeps his face blank and his breathing low and steady while he listens to Sam climbing into the other bed. From the way he'd looked earlier, Dean had expected Sam to pass out the minute his head hit the pillow. He's apparently wrong; Sam keeps shifting around, messing with the blankets and futzing with the pillows. Either Sam's suddenly become a fussy sleeper, (which Dean knows he isn't, not even back when they shared a bed and Dean amused himself by pressing his cold toes against the back of Sam's skinny legs,) or Dean was completely wrong about the rubbing-one-out theory.

Damn.

Eventually Sam stops shifting around, and Dean waits a few more minutes before he risks cracking an eye open. Even in the low light, he can see the stiffness in Sam's body. He's flat on his back, head on the mattress and pillows pushed off to one side. The one hand that Dean can see is clenched in the blankets. His breathing is regular, but too regular; deliberate. He's faking.

Maybe Sam just needs some time to work shit out. Feigning sleep is about as close to 'alone' that Dean can give him in the crappy motel room, so for now, he lets it go. If Sam doesn't look any better by morning, though, he's gonna have to push it. Grown man or no, there are some responsibilities Dean can't just let slide.

*

The next morning, they pack their gear and head out. Sam doesn't look all that much better, but he's more alert and some of the tension is gone from his eyes. Dean counts it as a win and decides maybe the distraction will actually help. Kid dwells too much anyway.

The GPS on Sam's phone is still activated, so they take a circuitous route to the coordinates, alert and checking for signs of police or dead vegetation.

The actual site of the geocache is crawling with law enforcement. Sam and Dean crouch behind a patch of low brush and watch for a few minutes, catching bits of conversation and the occasional crackle of radios. They don't find out anything particularly useful; without a trail to follow, the cops are left searching in a grid pattern, clearing each section and expanding their search outwards.

Sam nudges Dean and tips his head back, gesturing with his chin towards a dropoff about 15 yards away. Beyond the ridge there's a wide clearing, empty except for a small clump of industrial buildings in the distance. Sam leans in towards him and whispers, "Probably why they chose this spot for the cache, for the view."

They stay quiet for another few minutes, both scanning the area for any kind of clue. Dean peers back at the clearing and nudges Sam. "You see that?"

There's a thin trail of brown grass, right along the dropoff and then swerving off into the distance.

Sam's eyebrows arch up to meet his hairline.

"Bingo."

*

They backtrack through the woods, away from the swarm of police and park rangers clustered near the clearing. Once they're far enough away, Sam and Dean slip down over the ridge. It's steep enough that they have to be careful, but it's not impossible. Careful to stay out of sight, it's a while before they reach the trail of dead grass.

The ground is hard packed and nearly bare compared to the rest of the field. There are no clear footprints, but there probably wouldn't be with the ground like this.

"Not exactly the yellow brick road, but I'll take it," Dean says to Sam with a grin. Sam gives a half-hearted smile in return, okay so it was a lame joke. He knows they need to be stealthy, but the silence is driving him a little nuts. Dean freaking hates camping. Nature can go commune with itself, he doesn't see why he needs to get involved.

They follow the trail out of the clearing, eyes scanning for danger or signs of the missing hikers as they head back into the woods. The trail gets harder and harder to pick out; there's less underbrush here and almost no grass, it's all tall trees, dormant in the midst of winter.

"Think we're going the wrong way?"

"Not exactly, " Sam replies. Dean looks over to find Sam craning his neck and staring straight up. Dean looks up and sees it.

The trees here aren't just dormant; they're dead. Some of the branches have cracked open to reveal rotting wood, and with no leaves to obstruct the view, Dean is pretty sure the trees along their path are actually shorter than the rest of the forest. From down here it is kind of difficult to say for sure.

"...flying zombie granny?" Dean throws out.

Sam just stares up.  "I got nothin'."

"Maybe it's zombie-Tarzan."

"Nah, no vines."

Leave it to Sam to ruin his fun with his fancy logic.

"Right. Well, it's getting dark. I say we go grab some food, take a quick nap, and then go dig up Grandma." Dean looks around, baffled. "Our lives are fucking weird, dude." Really fucking weird.

Sam just nods in agreement and makes a note of their coordinates. Unless their visit to Granny gives them some clear answers, they'll be coming back here tomorrow.

*

Granny's grave is still covered in fresh dirt, with a nice healthy bouquet of flowers propped against the headstone. Dean is reevaluating his stance on zombie hunts. They actually kind of suck balls.

"Maybe they buried an empty casket. If they knew they were going to raise her anyway, maybe the family stashed the body somewhere else. No body, no unholy ground, right?"

"Lets find out," Dean hefts his shovel.

It takes forever to dig down to the casket, or seems like it. They're both trying to pick up slack for the other, and neither one is succeeding. Sam must be thinking of the bullet wound in Dean's shoulder, still aching a bit but otherwise okay. Dean is thinking about the tension around Sam's eyes that's returned tenfold since this morning.

And worst of all is when they finally flip open the coffin lid, and not only is granny home, but she's very, _very_ ripe. They both gag, and Sam backs away a few feet with his hands clenched over his face.

"Not a zombie then," Dean says, mouth and nose shoved into the crook of his arm in an attempt to block the stench.

"Nope," Sam agrees through heaving breathes. "Should we, uh, burn her anyway?"

"I'm thinking Granny isn't really the problem. She probably would've come after us by now if she was, right?" Dean takes a deep breath and walks back towards the grave. He reaches down with the shovel and manages to lever the coffin shut. "Plus, you wanna deal with eau de burning rotting corpse?"

Sam gags, and Dean takes that as a no.

Filling the grave back in takes far less time. Apparently _saving people hunting things_ is a less effective motivator than _eugh what is that smell make it stop_. Who knew?

They head back to the motel, defeated. Dean drives with the windows rolled down, no way he wants to infect his car with second-hand stink, even if he's pretty sure all of his scent-receptors (and his tastebuds, by sheer proximity) have shriveled up and died.

"I'll flip you for first shower," he offers Sam, holding up a quarter.

"Nah, you go ahead." Sam says as he heads over the open the window. It's cold out and there's not much of a breeze, but Dean's hardly going to object.

Dean spends another night playing the who-can-fake-sleep-longer game, until he finally gives up around dawn. Sam's not sleeping, minus one point. And Dean still feels like he's missing something.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean wakes up late the next morning, which is not unexpected after spending half the night digging up a grave and then filling it back in. He feels like that kid in one of the books he used to read to Sammy, moving mountains of sand from one pile to the other with a pair of tweezers, wasting all their energy doing something completely pointless.

  
Sam is already up, big surprise; Dean can hear the shower running. They'd both showered last night, but if Sam's muscles are aching anything like Dean's are right now, he can understand the need for a hot shower. Sam better not use up all the hot water.

  
There's a box of donuts on the counter, but no accompanying smell of coffee, which is a bummer. The room doesn't have a coffee machine either, so Dean stuffs himself with donuts to make up for the lack of caffeine. By the time Sam is out of the bathroom, Dean is up and dressed, having given up on the prospect of a hot shower for himself.

  
Sam must really be feeling it to take so long in there, Dean thinks. On the other hand, Sam can't have gotten more than five or six hours of sleep last night, if he even slept at all. He stuffs down the last donut as Sam sits down across the table from him.

  
"So if it's not Mrs. Lerner, we must've missed something. Could still be a seriously pissed off spirit, a local coven working dark mojo..." Sam trails off as he flips open his laptop.

  
"Anyone died bloody in those woods recently?"

  
"I guess I'll find out."

  
Sam still looks exhausted, but at least he's focusing on the case and not moping. Plus, he'd probably try to exorcise him if Dean offered to help with the research.

  
"I'm gonna go ask around at the police station, see if they've got any leads."

  
"Dean, you can't. The Feds are still after you, and your face was all over the news last month."

  
"Aw, c'mon. Like they even have tv in this podunk town."

  
"They have wifi," Sam points out.

  
"I'll be fine. You do your thing, and if I'm not back in a couple hours then you can come break me outta jail, okay?"

  
Sam's lips are pressed in a tight line, but he doesn't try to stop Dean as he walks out the door.

  
*

  
Dean doesn't actually head to the police station first thing. He drives around a little, makes a note when he sees a small bar where he might be able to hustle a few bucks. Small town like this, he won't be able to get too much; everyone knows everyone else and word travels quickly when a stranger shows up and starts winning hard earned cash off of good folk. He's made that mistake before and he can't afford to do it while Sam's around for the aftermath, bitching at him for his bruised knuckles and swollen eyes.

He could corner Sam and force him to talk, sick and uncomfortable like cauterizing a wound. Trade pain for pain and seal it shut instead of letting it rot like it is now. It would probably be the healthy thing to do, but since when have the Winchesters ever done the healthy thing?

  
But waiting isn't working. He doesn't have the time for it, not when Sam is this tense and crumbling under the pressure.

  
Dean does the only thing he can think of. He calls the roadhouse, hangs up when Ellen answers because he still hasn't worked out a way to set things right. He doubts Jo's said anything to her, not when they're barely on speaking terms as it is, but there's no good way to say 'I'm sorry my possessed brother almost kind-of threatened to rape your daughter; he didn't really mean to.'

  
He waits half an hour until it's lunchtime rush and Ellen should be busy, or so he hopes. Ash picks up on the seventh ring and Dean releases a breath he didn't know he was holding.

  
"Dean, buddy," Ash answers in a tone that's been marinating in mind altering chemicals. "How's it hanging?"

  
"Ash, I need a favor."

  
*

  
He finally heads over to the station after getting off the phone with Ash.

  
Dean goes with the 'distant relative' cover story. As far as the cops are concerned, he's long lost cousin who's horrified to hear his childhood best friend has gone missing. He watches everyone carefully, whatever Sam thinks he's not an idiot, he keeps tabs to make sure no enterprising citizen is phoning the Feds on him. Dean doesn't see the telltale flash of recognition in anyone's eyes; figures he's probably safe enough, for now.

  
If the cops have found anything useful, they're not sharing.

  
Dean prods and cajoles, plays up the worried relative card but gets nowhere. There are photos of the geocache site tacked to a bulletin board in one corner of the cluttered office. He scans the pictures and notes, trying to take in as much as he can as quick as he can before someone notices him snooping. Someone steps up behind him and clears their throat. Dean turns, tries to look innocently suprised.

  
"Mr. Fischer, I understand you're concerned for your cousin. But the best thing you can do right now is go home and wait. We're doing everything we can to find Jason, just let us do our work."

  
"Yeah, yeah okay." Dean rubs a hand over his face. "I just can't help it, y'know. And these pictures, I mean, what's with the dead grass? That's kinda weird, right?" It's not exactly subtle, but it's the best he's got.

  
The cop snorts. "Man, you're not one of those, are you? I've got environmental nuts on my ass about global warming and pollution because of that shit." He nods towards the bulletin board. "It's winter, stuff dies, what do they want me to say?"

  
"Huh, yeah." Dean agrees, and lets the cop hustle him out of the station. The trip wasn't entirely fruitless.

  
He stops at the library before he heads back, prints out the info from Ash and looks them over while he waits for his order to be called up at the diner. It isn't much, but there's a definite paper trail.

  
Dean's got the charges for two stolen credit cards, weaving a distinct trail all the way from West Texas up to Duluth. There isn't much on the cards, just gas stations and motels but it's something to go on. Dean guesses Meg stole whatever else she needed while she was riding Sam. Every rest stop on the list has a corresponding list of police reports attached to it, the usual grab bag of robberies and muggings. They've been filtered to include only those with descriptions of tall, male assailants.

  
He only has time to skim the reports, he's probably been gone too long already and Sam will be suspicious. He'll have to make excuses to Sam, feed him a line about the police station crawling with cops or a long wait at the diner. He crosses off out some of the reports right away; they don't sound like Sam. Then he shakes his head, because _none_ of them sound like Sammy.

  
Still, no matter how crappy the lighting might have been some of the physical descriptions clearly don't fit Sam, and there are a few reports he's able to rule out right away. That still leaves a half-dozen files to sift through, and the details for some of them are pretty sparse. Maybe after this case they can cut back southwest and Dean can sneak off to interview a few of these people.

  
He needs to figure out what that bitch did with Sam.

  
*

  
Dean comes back to the motel room to find Sam lying in bed flat on his back, asleep. Unexpected, but a nice surprise. He's sleeping like the dead, mouth open and limbs completely slack; doesn't even flinch when Dean closes the door.

  
Dean lets him sleep, the food can wait. He uses the extra time to slog through police reports, stack of newspapers within easy reach for a quick cover.

  
Hours later Sam wakes up in fits and starts. He twitches and shifts, rolls over and sleeps quietly for another two minutes, then starts over again. Dean's almost bored enough by that point to start throwing spit balls at Sam, but restrains himself. He could leave, go out for a drink or head back too the woods to check things out alone, but he'd only catch hell for it from Sam later. Going off alone is as inexcusable as drinking on a job, to Sam at least.

  
Finally, Sam scrunches up his whole face like the dim motel lighting has become offensive. He blinks awake, groaning when he catches a glimpse of the clock.

  
"Why'd you let me sleep so long?" Sam grumbles.

  
"You looked like you needed it, sleeping beauty." Dean grins as he watches Sam trying to pat down his hair where it's sticking out all over the place. "Police station wasn't a total bust; police are concentrating their search to the northwest of cache and they haven't found squat, and since we found bupkis when we headed south, I'm thinking we try northwest. You dig up anything?"

  
"The Lerners and the Napiers and everyone they ever knew are squeaky clean. Far as I can tell, there's no hoodoo, no one suddenly coming into money, no arrests, and granny died of late stage Alzheimer's. It wasn't unexpected, or unnatural." Sam says it all in a resigned tone, hours of research wasted on a bum lead. It sucks, but it happens.

  
"What about the forest?"

  
"Nothing, really." Sam slides off the bed and shrugs his shoulders, stretching his back. "It's not a big camping destination, not with so many state parks nearby. Couple of missing person's reports over the last few years, pretty sure one was a runaway and the other was found a couple days later, sounds like he fell into a hunter's pit. He came out with a few scratches but he lived.

  
"The dead plants have been popping up for a while, earliest report I found was 1993, in an article about a Mrs. Spelman, the local winner of the Warrick County Biggest Cucumber competition three years running." Exhausted or not, at least Sam's freakish ability to remember completely useless factoids remains unchanged.

  
"So whatever this is, it's not recent and it probably has nothing to do with the woods."

  
"Yeah."

  
"Fantastic."

  
*

  
With no other leads to go on, they pack up and head back out to the woods that night. They skirt around the floodlights illuminating the site of the cache, eyes averted so they won't readjust and be useless in the dark. They pick up the trail and head in opposite direction. Picking their way across the field and into the woods, they move slowly so they don't miss anything in the dark.

  
It's edging on dawn when Sam finally slaps his shoulder and nods towards a small clump on the ground off to the right. They trade glances, Dean moving to step ahead and Sam covering his back without a word. It's a pack, Joel Napier's wallet tucked in an outside pocket.

  
_Bingo,_ Dean mouths as they move back to the path, edging forward on high alert. Another five steps forward and the ground shifts under Dean's feet. He freezes, grabs Sam's arm and they hold still. Neither of them moves, waiting and listening. Dean can hear breathing.

  
They edge off the trail, stepping as softly as they can and moving as one.

  
"Joel Napier?" Dean calls out.

  
A thin voice responds, muted and rasping. "Ohgod, is that-? Yes! We're down here, please..." The voice trails off, still talking but too quiet to make out the words.

  
"Okay, don't worry we're gonna get you outta there, just hold on. Are Jason and Kathy with you?"

  
"Yeah, yeah they're here too. Jason's...and she's hurt, I don't..." He trails off again.

  
"Just keep talking buddy, you gotta stay with us, okay?"

  
"Sounds like a head injury," Sam whispers over Joel's confused mumbling.

  
Sam crouches down and digs a coil of salt-soaked rope out of their bag. He ties a loop in it; makeshift harness as good as it's gonna get with limited supplies. Dean takes up the other and brakes it against a nearby tree that looks sturdy enough. _Makeshift pulleys 101_, he thinks, remembering long days of survival training in the woods with Dad.

  
Joel is still talking, rambling on about his sister and his brother-in-law. Sounds like they'd been walking ahead and fallen in first as the ground crumbled underneath them; Joel crawled forward to take a look but rushed it, moved too fast and tumbled in after.

  
Dean looks back, expecting to find Sam spread out on the ground, distributing his weight and lowering the other end of the rope into the gaping pit. But Sam is still crouched on the ground, staring at the rope in his hands like he can't figure out where it came from.

  
"Sam," Dean rasps out. Sam startles, his eyes flicker between the rope in his hands and the pit off to the side. He tosses the looped end down into the pit, joins Dean on the other side to help haul.

  
It's hard and awkward work, talking Joel through securing Jason loop, heaving him up to the surface and far enough away from the pit to be safe, then repeating the whole process for Kathy. They stop to catch their breath, rolling the two unconscious hikers on to the backs. They're both breathing. Jason's got an obviously broken arm, hanging off at an unnatural angle, Kathy has a deep gash in her leg and a sloppily tied tourniquet around her upper thigh.

  
They get Joel out last, he's nearly unconscious by the time they pull him up. Dean has to gently slap him awake. They're miles from anywhere and no way the two of them can carry three unconscious people back to safety.

  
"Hey, c'mon wake up." Joel blearily opens his eyes. "Cell phones?"

  
"S'water." Joel mumbles. "Down there. Mine, in my pack...dunno th' battery."

  
Sam hikes back to get Joel's pack. Joel is right, there's not much battery life left in his cell, but using one of their own phones is out of the question. No way they Dean wants either of their numbers on anyone's radar, and when they're this low on funds they can't exactly run out to get new ones right away.

  
There's enough juice for Sam to send a quick text to Joel's wife, approximate coordinates pulled from the GPS on Sam's phone. It's mid-morning by then, and she's probably been superglued to her phone ever since she reported them missing. Dean just hopes the cops have enough sense to listen to her when she relays the message.

  
They wait with Joel, keeping him awake and talking, he repeats the story. There's an underground stream around here, apparently too close to the surface where the ground had caved in. The three of them had been left clinging to the banks of the stream for days, water just deep enough to reach their chests. None of them were strong enough to climb their way out, the sides muddy and crumbling.

  
An hour later they hear the first sounds of people approaching.

  
"Sounds like the cavalry has arrived." Dean tells Joel, gives his shoulder a pat. "You remember the story?"

  
"Yeah. Jason and Kath fell in, I managed to pull them out a while ago but then I slipped and hit my head. Everything's kinda fuzzy." Joel repeats back faithfully and he doesn't have to fake the wooziness. Dean gives him one last encouraging shoulder pat and stands up.

  
"Alright, we're gonna head out then. You be careful."

  
"I will." Joel pushes up, looks at them with unfocused eyes. "Uh, thanks. Guys."

  
He doesn't know even their names, and that's a good thing as far as Dean is concerned.

  
*

"Well, that was a bust."

  
"We saved three people." Sam adjusts the strap of the pack on his shoulder.

  
"From an evil stream. No zombies, no case. There's nothing here but a bunch of dead bushes."

  
They're edging along the path of dead brush, still heading northwest. Dean is still half hoping to find a zombie, and Sam's got this pinched look on his face like he's got a theory but he's not ready to share it. Neither one of them is ready to head back just yet, plus the police are somewhere behind them on the trail. Half an hour ago they'd heard a chopper overhead; the story might have gotten picked up by a major new station, or it was someone getting med-evac'd to a hospital.

  
The path loops back around, a gentle curve until they're heading south again. Sometimes it's a faint trail of dead brush, sometimes the branches above them are rotted and dying. They reach the opposite side of the clearing that was visible from the cache, a pitted blacktop road and a couple of squat industrial buildings; clearly abandoned. Sam walks ahead, busts open the lock on the chain link fence and picks the lock on one of the doors. Dean follows behind, scanning the horizon and wondering what Sam is after.

  
He catches up, finds Sam standing in the doorway of a building, ugly aluminum panels covering a simple steel frame. The floor is hard packed dirt. Nothing interesting.

  
"Yahtze," Sam says, and points at the ugly stack of half dissolved steel drums.

  
"Chemical waste?"

  
Sam just nods. Tips his head to the side and explains. "That stuff gets into the ground, into the stream below. Kills the plants from the roots up."

  
"Sometimes deeper, when it only gets the trees, sometimes shallower. Rots the roots, makes the ground unstable." Dean finishes for him. "So what now, we find the local Erin Brokovich and clue her in?"

  
Sam huffs out a laugh. It's a good sound; one he hasn't heard in a while.

  
"Pretty much."

  
*

  
They stay at the motel for one more night, both in need of shower and a nights sleep after spending nearly 20 hours hiking around in woods. Dean raises a beer in salute to a hunt well done; watches as Sam raises his in turn but doesn't drink. He's been on an abstinence kick ever since they left Bobby's. It's another piece to the puzzle, but a small one, and barely enough to count. He either binges or teetotals when he's feeling guilty, no such thing as a happy middle ground with Sammy. He's probably convinced that a drink will topple the walls, turn him dark side with one mouthful.

  
Dean stays quiet. Ordering the kid to drink some beer seems a little ridiculous, and it wouldn't really address the root of the problem, he knows.

  
Sam watches old nick-at-night reruns on the crappy tv, sound on low and face impassive. Dean falls asleep half propped against the wall, seeing the muted flashes of black and white from the screen against his eyelids. He'll deal with Sam tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

They check out of the motel and pass through two towns before Dean stops at a diner for breakfast. It's kind of an unnecessary expense, but they've skipped two meals in the past 24 hours and his stomach won't let him forget it.

"You detoxing or something?" Dean waves a fork at Sam's breakfast. It's the usual healthy crap with a tall glass of orange juice. Sam looks up, confused.

"Where's your mocha-kappa-thing with eight packets of sugar?" Dean clarifies.

Sam shrugs. "Didn't feel like it."

Dean chews and thinks. As well as he can remember, Sam 'hasn't felt like it' since they left South Dakota. He adds coffee to the puzzle and still comes up with a steaming pile of nothing. Caffeine withdrawal might explain the sleep issues, but he's pretty sure there's more to it than that.

He files it away and moves on to the next problem.

"So I say we head to Evansville, stop early and hit a couple bars and pick up some cash."

"Yeah."

And just like that, Sam is back to not talking.

Dean flips open the paper and finds story about an anonymous tip bringing down a local branch of a big corporation for improper disposal of chemical waste.

*

They take it easy over the next couple of days.

Sam is compulsively checking obits in every new town, and Dean ignores every mention of hunts nearby and Sam's confused looks. He drives west in a meandering route, hoping to hit Wichita and get some face time with a recent mugging victim from Ash's files without Sam noticing.

It'll be another week or so before they can check the mail drop for fresh credit cards. They hustle up a decent enough supply of cash, even if they still spend most nights sleeping in impala. The car is cramped and cold, but they can afford three hot meals a day and have enough leftover in case of an emergency.

Dean is a practical guy, emergencies happen often enough in their family that he feels uncomfortable if he's not prepared for one. Or several all at once.

Sam is still communicating in monosyllables, not completely silent like before but he's not exactly sparkling company. His brother is bitchy at the best of times, now that he's sleep deprived and caffeine deprived Dean is almost glad for the silence.

And Sam is definitely sleep deprived. Now that he knows to listen for it, Dean can tell when Sam is lying awake in the backseat. He tries to stay up late enough to hear him drop off but he doesn't. Neither of them talk about it, even though Dean's pretty sure Sam hears him shifting around, awake in the front seat. Sam wordlessly offers him the back, even though they've stopped rock-paper-ing for it; just climbs in the front one night and that's that.

Sam's eyes look bruised, and he's walking stiffly, all those nights spent cramped up in the car are taking their toll. And Dean still has no idea how to fix it.

*

It's another night in the impala. Dean's in the backseat this time when Sam finally breaks his self-imposed silence.

"Could you stop?" He says out of nowhere.

Dean contemplates faking sleep, but forgets that idea quickly enough. This is the most he's said at once in at least a week. "Stop what?"

"Just-  go to sleep, Dean." He hears Sam shift, uncomfortable. "I can't sleep when you're all..." A hand waves emphatically over the top of the seat.

"Uh, yeah okay."

He doesn't really understand what Sam's deal is, but he gives in and closes his eyes, counts shotgun shells until he drifts away.

The next morning, Sam looks a little better. He still looks tired; still keeps twisting and stretching his back like it aches, but he's not stumbling around half-dead anymore and Dean counts that as progress. Sam actually sleeps better when they're in the car. Giant weirdo.

Dean stays intentionally low on cash after that, finds excuses not to hustle so they're forced to spend more nights than not in the impala. Sam keeps giving him weird looks that Dean shrugs off.

"I just think we gotta be more careful. We got the Feds and possibly a bunch of angry hunters on our asses, maybe we should avoid getting into bar fights unless they're strictly necessary."

Dean winks at the last bit, accidentally hitting on the bartender's girl isn't strictly necessary, but there's no practical way for him to prevent it from happening.  He could always stop flirting, but he won't and they both know it.

"Whatever, I call back seat," Sam replies.

*

Terry Lawrence is a nervous looking guy with thick black glasses and three locks on his door. There are two security chains, freshly installed if Dean is any judge. He passes a fake Fed badge through the crack of the open doorway and tries his best to look trustworthy.

After a long few minutes of consideration, the door closes and Dean hears the security chains slide free.

They sit in the living room, and Terry keeps jumping up to offer tea, or snacks, or to fetch his copy of the police report. Dean finds himself wishing Sam were here to help out and put the guy at ease.  Which is impossible, because Sam is technically the one he's investigating.

"Thank you Mr. Lawrence, but I have read the report.  I know this must be difficult, but some of it was a little vague."

Terry folds his hands in his lap, leans forward with his elbows resting on his knees. He doesn't look at Dean when he talks.

"I, uh. I got knocked in the head. Doctor said short term memory loss was to be expected."

"I understand. If you could just think back, try to tell me everything that happened that night, we might find some details that weren't included in your original report. Really, the smallest thing could be a big help to our investigation."

Terry looks both terrified and reassured at that, and Dean's spidey sense is tingling.  Something about this guy's paranoia isn't adding up.

From the police file, it sounds like a pretty standard mugging; the black eyed bitch riding Sam found Terry in an alley and knocked him out. When the guy'd woken up a couple of hours later, his wallet had been missing and he'd stumbled his way to the nearest police station to report the crime.

Dean can understand wanting to be careful going out after something like that, but installing new locks on your door and being suspicious of a federal agent (even if he is a fake one) indicate a whole different level of 'scared.'

Dean takes a mock-sip of his tea, trying to imagine what Sam would do to get this guy to open up. But Sam is holed up in a diner with wifi , poking around for new a case and as far as he's concerned, Dean is off with the waitress who'd conveniently just gotten off shift.

If only.

Terry clears his throat.  "It was pretty late, I was on my way home.  Alone.  It's not the best area, you know, but I've never had a problem before. Me 'n my buddies, we'd go out all the time. I uh, I ducked into this alley to light a smoke and he was there."

Terry swallows; he's rubbing his hands together nervously.

"Did you see the attacker at all?"

"Only for a second, he was big. Not fat just, really tall. He had dark hair, kinda long," Terry says and waves a hand near his eye-line.

"Did you happen to see his eyes?"

"It was dark in the alley," Terry shakes his head "they just looked black. Like I said, I only saw him for a second. He pushed me up against the wall, and um."

Terry stops and finally looks up at Dean.

"Anything can help? I mean, I didn't see anything else but."

"Anything you can remember.  There're a couple of other reports, we're just trying to catch this guy before he hurts more people.  Please."  Dean doesn't have to fake his sincerity for this.

"He didn't just take my wallet. He.  I can show you."

Terry is off the couch like a shot, leaving Dean wondering if he's supposed to follow or not. Dean stays put, figures the guy is pretty wigged out and probably needs his space.  There's a shuffling sound from the next room, Terry digging out whatever it is he needs to show Dean.

_What the fuck did Meg do to this guy?_

Terry comes back carrying a crumpled pile of clothes that look the worse for wear and shoves them at Dean, like he can't get rid of them fast enough. Dean checks out the clothes, just a pair of jeans and boxer shorts that are scuffed and slightly stiff. Terry doesn't sit back down, he's standing with his arms crossed, off by the door of the kitchen.

"I didn't get knocked out right away. I didn't."  Stops and starts. "I couldn't tell the cops. I guess, those are evidence I guess, right?"

It takes Dean an age to put the pieces together. _Pushed me up against the wall...didn't just take my wallet...I couldn't tell the cops._

The stiffness of the boxers is dried come. Sam's, gotta be.

"You were raped," Dean says and it's not a question; there's no point to dancing around it and Dean is too shocked to try. He's gotta face up to it sometime, and from the way things look he wasn't the only victim. Fuck.

Terry just nods from the corner.

"I'm not going to get in trouble am I? For not, you know," Terry waves vaguely at the pile of clothes.

"No, Mr. Lawrence." And Dean hates himself for the next part, but he has to, because this is Sammy and this wasn't his fault but it's his freaking _come_ on the fucking clothes. "I'm gonna need to take these for the investigation though."

"That's fine, god, I don't even know why I kept them. I just, shoved them in the back of my closet when I got home and then. I don't want them,"  Terry blurts out.

Dean leaves Terry's apartment with the clothes and drives out to a field a couple of miles from their motel. He digs a pit and burns them; stands watching until the flame burns down and doesn't even notice when it gets dark.

*

There are two more potential victims in the case files Ash had sent him.

One file has a reference to an addendum that Ash didn't include; if it's medical files and the results of a rape kit then Dean's betting Ash wouldn't have had access with just a preliminary hack. He could ask Ash to dig further but he sure as hell doesn't want to pull him even deeper into this. The less Ash knows, the better.

Dean wishes he didn't have to know either. The thought of two more victims churns his stomach.

And he knows Sam was awake for it. He was awake for Steve Wandell; there's no way Meg went off to get her jollies and just let Sam take a break from the fun. Bitch probably got off fucking this guy while Sam raged inside.

As much as he doesn't want to press the issue, Dean knows he's going to have to; Sam is locked up tight with guilt and hurt and there's no way he's coming out of this on his own.  But he can't just jump right into it, isn't even sure how to do it. 

Dean needs some time to deal. He heads back to the motel and feigns normal as much as he can.

"Find anything?"

"Possible haunting on a college campus in Springfield, Ohio. You?" Sam asks with a sarcastic tone. He thinks Dean got lucky, Dean is happy to play along.

"O-ho yeah, Sammy," he says with a plastered on lecherous grin.

Sam just rolls his eyes. Normally this would be the point where Dean would go into all the glorious details, (making them up if he has to, at least until he gets Sam to make that awesome _eugh__-you're-so-gross_ face) but he's not really in the mood for teasing.

They both pretend to sleep that night.

*

They spend two days driving back east, making a not so quick detour down to Clarksville to pick up a new stash of credit cards from a PO box. Sam insists on a getting a room after that, now that they can afford it.  And Dean has no good argument to refuse. So they blow money on motel rooms for the night and neither one of them sleeps but they both pretend to.

By the third day Dean is pissed off and way passed tired.  He's been telling himself he needs time to think about how to ask Sam about it, because brothers or not, this isn't the kind of conversation they have every day.  If he's honest, he's been avoiding thinking about it.

His resolve to keep quiet and figure out a way to help Sam breaks as he watches Sam climb into bed on night. Like he's actually going to get any sleep and they're both just going to keep up the act indefinitely.

"Are we gonna talk about this?"

"About what?" Sam asks, looking genuinely confused.

"You're not sleeping. I know you're not. The only time you don't look exhausted is when we bum it in the Impala. And I love my car but she ain't exactly built for sleeping."

Sam is silent. Dean sits down on the other bed, no way this conversation is going to be short and easy.

"Sam?"

He's not looking at Dean when he mumbles, "I sleep better if you're nearby."

There's a beat of silence, then Sam looks up. "Pills only make it worse. I can't let myself relax. Not if you're not there to stop me if I. If I wake up and I'm not me."

"Bed's three feet away, dude. I'm not letting anything get to you."

"It's not good enough. I got away once before, next time-"

"No, you listen to me. There's not gonna be a next time, alright? We got the hex bags from Bobby, and we'll just be more careful.  You think I'm not watching you?"

Sam sits there looking miserable.

"What's better about the Impala? I mean, besides everything," Dean adds with a derogatory wave at their hole-in-the-wall motel room.

"The doors're loud."

"So you can't leave without me hearing," Dean is nodding, gets it now. Still, there's a red flag in the back of his mind, something Sam said a minute ago. "What did you mean about pills?"

"Took 'em in Mason. They got me to sleep okay, but I kept feeling like I was waking up. I couldn't wake up for real but I felt like I was, just, always in different places. It was like it was happening again, the whole thing."

"Right," Dean says, 'cause he knows Sam is waiting for some kind of response.

It's an easy enough decision to make, maybe not an ideal solution but sure as hell a lot more comfortable than bunking in the impala for another night or risking one of them passing out in the middle of a hunt. They can deal with this in little bits and pieces; for now, Dean's gonna settle for getting them both a solid night of sleep. He pulls the pillows from his bed and plunks them on Sam's.

"Shove over, Sasquatch."

"Wha-?" Sam shifts over a bit, mostly to avoid getting sat on as Dean moves over to sit. He shucks his shirt and kicks off his boots and jeans while Sam sputters and tries to reclaim his sheets from under Dean's ass. "What the hell, you're not gonna-"

"Oh yes I am," Dean interrupts, not at all dissuaded. He twists around to throw a mildly threatening look at Sam.  "So help me god if I wake up and you're spooning me, you'll be singing soprano for a _week_."

He reaches up and clicks off the light.

Dean can feel Sam's eyes on the back of his neck, the tense stillness from the other side of the bed. He waits to see if Sam will cave, or if he'll just take his pillow and retreat to the other bed. When Sam lets out an annoyed sigh and plops down to the mattress Dean knows he's won.

On the other hand, it can't mean anything good that Sam is so worried about this that he's willing to share a bed, like they haven't done since they were teens.

*

Dean wakes up lying on his stomach and cold, with his face tucked into the back of Sam's neck and none of the blankets. It's like a sucker punch to the chest, how much Sam smells exactly like he did when he was a toddler. Ivory soap and clean sweat, and the smell of skin so familiar Dean knows it instantly without opening his eyes.

He eases back and sits up carefully. Sam is curled up on his side facing the wall, hugging a pillow and drooling into the mattress. Dead to the world asleep.  Score.

Dean wants to slip out and pick up breakfast but thinks the better of it. He doesn't want Sam waking up alone.  Dean's not sure when he started handling Sam with kid gloves, but he promised  he'd watch out for him and he's damn well going to stick to that.

So he showers and spends a while messing around on Sam's laptop, bookmarks a couple of porn sites just to pisshim off. By the time Sam wakes up, Dean's stomach is growling and he's itching to get on the road. Sam sits up and rubs his hands over his face, glances down at Dean's empty space on the bed and pointedly avoids looking at Dean.

They don't talk about it.

They're quiet and out of step all morning, bumping elbows on their way into the diner and knocking hands when they both reach for the ketchup. Sam is out of sight for two and a half minutes when he goes to the bathroom and Dean starts an absentminded tally of minutes alone, minutes apart.  Even when he knows there's a hex bag tucked safely inside Sam's left jean pocket.

He'd thought that between all the days spent on the road, and the hex bags, and the distraction of new cases to work would be enough to keep Sam's guilt at bay, but that was before he knew. Clearly he was wrong, and he's out of the tried and true Winchester methods of dealing with bad crap.

*

They get into Springfield sometime after midnight. Dean stops at the nearest bar, Sam's been tense and awkward all day and they could both use a little time to unwind. Plus, if they get in while the news is fresh and the gossip mill is still going, Dean knows they might pick up some useful info on the vic.

Sam rolls his eyes, but goes along with it.

Dean keeps tabs on him at the bar; watches Sam as he slips into the roll of relaxed college, student easy as breathing. He's a good actor; all signs of tension rolling off his shoulders as he chats up some kids at one of the tables, all but the smallest signals Dean picks up.

Dean hits the bar. He knows he can't pull off the goofy college boy act and he's in the mood for harder game tonight anyway.

He finds it soon enough in the form of a hot blond grad student, quick witted and a little tipsy and looking for some fun after a week of hard work. Or so she tells Dean, arm slung around his shoulders and leaning in like she can't quite stand up on her own.

He's about one charming smile away from sealing the deal when Sam comes over.

They climb into bed that night without a word, just a quick flash of hex bags they tuck under the mattress and a few grunts as they tug on the covers and try to settle in without elbowing each other in the ribs too much.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam is already awake when Dean opens his eyes the next morning. He can feel Sam's breath on the top of his head, too controlled and shallow to be unconscious.

Dean is on his stomach, one knee hitched up and pressing against Sam's side and one fist clenched tight in his share of the blankets, 'cause you can say a lot of things about him but damned if he isn't a fast learner.

There's a deliberate catch in Sam's breathing; like he's periodically holding it in and then exhaling slowly and trying to stay quiet about it. Dean can feel the flex of Sam's stomach against his leg, the muscle there tight and quivering.

Dean's seen and heard enough of Sam's nightmares to know that's not what this is.

He risks opening his eyes just a little, just enough to make out the pinched expression on Sam's face through the blur of his own eyelashes. And damn but if he hasn't recognized that expression ever since Sammy was thirteen and just learning what his dick was for. Growing up in close quarters, it's not exactly new or shocking. What's weird is that Sam isn't moving; isn't heading off to the bathroom to take care of things.

Dean feigns sleep, waiting for Sam to get up and slip away, but he doesn't.

Dean shifts, presses his leg up farther against Sam's stomach. It's possible Sam is only half awake, maybe with some careful prodding he can wake him up. Sam shifts a little, but doesn't otherwise move.

"-am?" Dean mutters, voice still thick with sleep and a little muted by the pillows. Sam's eyes shoot open like a deer in headlights. _Gotcha._

"That a shotgun 'r you just happy to see me?" Dean mumbles. He can't actually feel that particular part of Sam's body right now, but teasing little brothers is exactly what big brothers are made for.

Except that Sam doesn't look annoyed or embarrassed. His face crumples; mouth twisting downwards and clenched in a hard line.

"I can't- "

"Woah, woah, what?" Dean sits up and wipes a hand over his face, scrubbing the sleep out of his eyes because clearly he's reading this situation wrong. Sam could be hurt or maybe it really was a nightmare and Dean is scanning the bed for blood before he can finish the thought.

Once, when Sam was maybe twelve, by some strange sequence of events Dean had landed himself in his very first Health class at school. Dean got stuck with the loner-textbook as usual, beaten up and scrawled over with stupid notes and lewd stick figure drawings. He'd flipped through it idly, looking for gross pictures of crabs and herpes to show Sammy to freak him out.

Some of the section titles and picture captions had inevitably stuck with him: warning signs of kidney failure and appendicitis illustrated with ridiculous cartoon figures. Dean is man enough to admit he'd flipped out a little at the time, catching Dad outside the motel room one night and interrogating him.

They'd never had regular doctors check ups, how would they know if Sammy's appendix was about to burst or he got mono at school from that Lindsey girl he'd been mooning over or what if a million other things.

Dad had just stared at him, exhausted and stressed, and pretty obviously irritated. He'd put his hands on Dean's shoulders and held tight, _Anything is wrong, we'll know. Not gonna happen, because we're watching him. Right?_

The last bit had come out more like an order than a question, and Dean had taken it seriously.

Suddenly it wasn't just about making sure the kid washed behind his ears, ate all his veggies, and stayed inside the salt lines at night. That's when it started, Dean's tally. Sleeping and eating, skin tone and every movement; did Sam look sore, was he holding his wrist funny?

Dean goes through the list now in double time, wants to rip the blankets off Sam and poke and prod until he's sure. He doesn't, but only because Sam is a grown up now and Dean's pretty sure he'd get a solid punch to the face if he tried.

"What is it, a vision? Are you hurt, what?" He pats down over Sam's shoulders and works his way down, Sam shifts, pulls away and buries his face in his pillow.

"Dean, stop!" Sam grinds out, voice muffled but clear enough. He turns his head to the side a little. "Back off a sec, okay?"

He slides off the bed, steps back until he can feel the backs of his legs hit the other bed. Sam rolls off the other side, sits on the edge hunched over and facing the wall.

"I call first shower," Sam mumbles without turning around, just gets up and walks to the bathroom. And Dean can tell, clear as day, he was right the first time around. Sam is off to take another cold shower, like he didn't have enough of those after Jess.

The thing is, yeah, they're poor and their lives suck, and they spend more time covered in dirt and blood than not. Good things are few and far between, taking pleasure in simple things like eating greasy food and watching fire dance in a grave. The only things they keep are ones that can fit in the trunk and be packed up quick and neat.

Sam has his computer, one thing saved from the fire and only because it'd been stashed in it's case right by the door. Dean has the Impala, more home than any place he's ever lived. And they have their bodies, confidence and iron control built in from years of training, moving together back to back or side by side.

And Dean is done with it. With all of it, every last fucking thing that Sam blames himself for when it isn't his fault. Dean's always been honest about his own screw ups, he pulled Sam away from Stanford and Jess paid the price. He let his guard down in Texas and guys like Wandell and Lawrence paid the price. And Sam.

The bathroom door is shut, not exactly a surprise. They tend to leave it cracked open, tacit assent if the other one needs to come in and brush his teeth or piss. Closed door means alone time; come inside and loose a limb.

Dean ignores it. The bathroom isn't even a little fogged, no warmer than the air of the motel room and Dean doesn't need to feel the water to know it's ice cold.

He can see Sam's figure, blurry through the moldy plastic curtain. His hands are braced on the wall under the shower head, hair hanging down under the force of the spray. He doesn't even react to the sound of the door opening, Dean isn't sure he heard it over the rush of water.

"So this is it, huh? Spend the rest of your life not dealing with this?"

"Get. Out." Sam leans forward just enough so his face is out of the spray, words spoken softly but hard all the same.

"Nope. 'S not like you're doing anything in here anyway." Dean pauses. "Are you?"

When there's no response, Dean flips the toilet seat and takes a leak, gives Sam just enough space not to snap but not enough to actually have any privacy.

*

They spend the next five days snapping at each other, yeah it's exacerbated by the Trickster but the roots are something else entirely.

After that first night, Sam makes a point of sprawling out over his whole bed. Dean takes the hint, sleeps in his own bed and watches as Sam gets twitchy and his eyes go puffy from lack of sleep.

Dean finds excuses for them to stick together, not willing to let Sam out of his sight for too long. Sam undoubtedly picks up on it but lets it slide. Eventually things get ridiculous, they're bumping shoulders and jostling for space when they're searching the sewers for a freakin' man-eating alligator and this whole case has put them both in a bad mood.

As if being stuck searching a dank sewer isn't bad enough.

"Look, I'm gonna check out the north side of campus," Sam gives his shoulder a squeeze and heads off in the other direction.

Dean finishes out his section in a rush, not really caring if he runs into the damn thing head-first so long as Sam isn't the one that gets caught alone with it. Sam is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, it's a mantra he's repeated since Sammy was twelve and tagged along on his first hunt, except Dean's never really believed it.

No matter how many hunts they finish, there's still a big brother part of him that's always a little bit surprised when Sam holds his own.

As soon as he crawls out of the sewers, he starts checking in with Sam every ten minutes while they circuit the campus and try to find any witnesses. Sam picks up on that too, starts sending texts with status updates which Dean ignores and calls anyway.

It's a rookie move, letting shit like this get in the way of the hunt. And Dad would knock their heads together for it, except Dad's flown the coop permanently this time and Dean knows he's on his own with this one, just like always.

Which is why when they blow up at each other, they really blow up. Dean is just glad Bobby isn't nearby enough to hear, at least he hopes. Sam is yelling at Dean for being an overbearing, unthinking asshole, and Dean is yelling right back that Sam is an emo bitch and god knows what else because his brain-to-mouth filter has completely shut down.

If nothing else, the fight gets the adrenaline pumping; doesn't wear off even after hours of pacing the sidewalk outside the Trickster's place. Dean's head is spinning with it and he's not sure if he wants to shove Sam's head through a wall or just lock him in a closet for the rest of his life.

He hasn't given up on taking a break from hunting, putting some distance between them and all this supernatural shit that keeps pushing Sam closer and closer to whatever-the-fuck destiny. They haven't actually done it, because Sam is freakishly bullheaded, but Dean's kind of past the point of caring about what Sam wants.

As soon as they've dropped Bobby off at his own car and packed up their motel room, Dean pulls over on the side of the road outside of town and just stops. They're not going on another hunt like this, snapping at each other and hiding shit from each other. Dean cranks the car off but leaves the keys in the ignition, rubs his palms against his jeans just for something to do with his hands.

"I know you want to talk about this about as much as I want to listen to it, but man, we gotta talk about Meg."

Sam gives the tiniest of shrugs, "What about it?"

Casual as it comes out, Dean sees the twitch of Sam's nose, quick but silent intake of breath. And the way he avoids saying the demon's name. Well, the only name they know her by, anyway. Dean calls bullshit, turns and faces Sam head on.

"How much do you remember?"

Another shrug, nervous Sammy-habit when he's trying to look relaxed but really isn't. "It's like I told you, just bits and pieces. I remember the diner in Texas, flashes of driving around."  Sam takes a second to swallow.  "Wandell. Some of the stuff with Jo. Did you know Dad killed Bill Harvelle?"

_I know demons lie, but ...do they ever tell the truth?_

Shit.

"They were working a job that went south quick, that's all. And how would Meg even know that?"  Dean knows Sam is just trying to steer the conversation, but he doesn't call him on it.  Dean's got nothing but time to burn. 

"She knew. I could feel it, she knew."  Sam argues.  "Bill was hurt bad, Dad put him down. Like a sick dog, she said."

Sam is staring straight ahead, refuses to turn and meet Dean's eyes. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what he's thinking.

"For chrissake, you're not a sick dog, Sam. I am not putting a bullet in you because you got possessed. Shit happens, we deal. We still got a job to do and you're no good to me dead."

"There had to have been some reason she could get in, right? Demons sneak in the cracks, finds your weakness. The demon did something to me, made me dark.  Whatever Meg did, maybe it wasn't totally my fault but there is some part of me that's just as guilty.  And we can't ignore that anymore, it's too dangerous."

"So you think you're weak? Dad got possessed too, you think he's weak?"

"Dad fought it off!" Sam finally turns, one hand braced on the dashboard and the other clutching at the seat back, eyes wild and suspiciously bright. "When the demon came after you, he stopped. He made it stop. And I couldn't."

"Dad had a good twenty years of hate for that thing built up inside and it still took everything he had to fight it off. We got you back alive and sent that thing to hell, can't we just count that as a win? That part is simple;  you're not going darkside, Sammy, because I won't let you."

Sam settles back in his seat, and they both sit in tense silence. Sam is the one who finally breaks it.

"Are we done? Scenery's a little boring."

Which is true. There's nothing but scraggly brush and dry earth, the two lane road they're on is little more than gravel. Sam is bored and uncomfortable and Dean couldn't care less.

"What happened with Meg?"

"Didn't we just do this?"

"Fine, I'll ask something different. What happened with Terry Lawrence?"

That gets Sam's attention. "What did you-"

"Did a little research. Turns out I'm not totally useless at it."

Sam's hands are clenched in his lap, his jaw tight and eyes wide, from what Dean can tell in profile. He doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to keep prodding into the jagged edges to make Sam shatter but there's no way Sam is dealing with this on his own. It's been weeks since they left South Dakota and Sam hasn't said a word, not a fucking word about any of it.

"Is he- Is he okay?"

"He's dealing." It's not entirely true, Terry had five locks on the door and was keeping evidence of the assault stuffed in the bottom of his closet. But at least he'd actually been able to talk about it, to a complete stranger no less. Then again, Dean's seen enough aftermath of trauma in his years to know that it's not just a Lifetime movie myth that it's easier to talk to a stranger sometimes.  In their line of work, they count on it. But fuck if he's gonna let Sam unload on some random person in a bar, if Sam was even the type to do that kind of thing. "And what about you?"

Kind of a superfluous question, really. They both know exactly how well Sam's been dealing.

"Not like it hurt me," Sam answers in a flat voice.

"Bullshit."

"Dean-"

"Bullshit."

"The whole repeating yourself is getting old."

"Yeah it's getting kind of old for me too. You know what would be great? If you could let it sink in to your ginormous head so I could stop. Meg might not have left any scars, but she sure as hell did her very best to fuck you up just as much as she did to Wandell or Terry or any of the others." Dean pauses. "And yeah, I know there were others."

It's as close to a speech as Dean's going to make which is probably for the best, because Sam has apparently checked out of the conversation.

"I'm gonna say it as many times as you need to hear it. It wasn't your fault."

Sam doesn't reply. In fact, he doesn't talk at all for the next 500 miles until they stop for the night in Cedar Rapids. But when they go to bed that night Sam crawls in next to Dean, shoving him over to make room. Dean doesn't say anything, just listens to the sound of Sam's breathing evening out, the shuffle of covers as he settles in to sleep.

It's one step forward and one step back, but at least Sam is sleeping again.  He counts it as a win.

*

Dean wakes up first the next morning, feels like finally balance has been restored because Sam's never been much of a morning person. He grabs his cellphone from the night stand and slips out the door. Sam rolls over and snuffles a bit but doesn't wake up. He leaves the door cracked open but stands far enough away that his voice won't carry.

"Dammit, kid. I just got home," Bobby answers, sounding pissed and maybe a little amused.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks again for coming out for us, we really appreciate it."  He lays it on thick, sweet as honey, but it's not like that's ever worked with Bobby. 

Bobby grumbles something under his breath and Dean decides to cut to the point.

"Listen, those hex bags you gave me are great but, call me paranoid I'm wondering if there isn't something a little more permanent we could try. Some spell maybe, lay a little no-demons-allowed mojo on us?"

"Sam's worrying himself sick about getting hijacked again, ain't he?"

"Can't say we wouldn't both sleep better with some extra protection."

"Yeah, you 'n me both. I'll look into it and let you know."

"Thanks, Bobby."

"Yeah, yeah."

Dean slips back inside, relieved to find Sam still asleep. He's quiet, walking around on bare feet and crouching down by Sam's head. Slow as he can, head cocked to catch any hint of a hitch in Sam's breathing, he reaches under the mattress until his fingers brush the hex bag. He's not sure why he's checking; just has to do it, like poking your tongue in the hole left by a missing tooth.

Sam rolls over, arm flopping over the side and just barely missing whacking Dean in the face.

Satisfied, he starts a pot of coffee going and heads to the shower, leaving the bathroom door cracked open. They're safe for now, back on the road and Bobby's working on something better. Take things as they come; they'll be just fine.

They're just fine.


	6. Chapter 6

They get a late start.   Another long day on the road.

They're not actually heading towards something so much as drifting west along the back roads. Dean takes the Impala through the paces, guns it on long stretches of familiar pavement and then turning off at random intervals to wander new territory. Sam doesn't object to their meandering path; this is something they both need sometimes, something they both grew up doing every once in a while to decompress.

The world contracts to hum of the engines, miles and miles of blacktop and hard packed dirt stretching out on all sides. If the Winchester's ever held with anything as pansy-ass as meditation, this is how they'd do it.  Less than five feet apart and breathing the same stale air, it's as close to alone time as anyone can get in a car.

Nine straight hours on the road and they wind up in a tiny roadside diner just off I-80. Dean doesn't realize how hungry he is or just how much his ass has fused to the seat until he turns to get out of the car. His right hand aches from too much time spent wrapped around the steering wheel, legs protesting as he stands and stretches out the kinks in his back. Sam is doing the same on the other side of the car, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles like a prizefighter.

"Ah, man I don't know what I was thinking going that long without some fuel," Dean says and he's not talking about the car, they've  stopped for gas already a couple of times today.  At each stop they'd get out and stretch as the pump did it's thing, snacking on beef jerky or whatever else was within easy reach.

At the diner their waitress is a heavyset woman with straight-from-the-salon blown out hair and a crooked nametag that reads 'LYDIA'. She's not at all surprised when they both wave away the menus and order the tried and true diner fare. They've been on the road all day and it must show, she probably figures they're long haul truckers on a break.

"Be 'bout ten minutes," she throws over her shoulder as she makes her way back to the kitchen.

Dean amuses himself tracing his fingers over the scarred Formica countertop, still idly flexing his right hand because it's ingrained habit.  Never let your primary gun arm go stiff.

And typical of Sam, he chooses the worst possible time to come out with the soul sore confessions. Doesn't wait until they're back in the car or checked in to a motel for the night, no.  Spills it all out here in the middle of diner full of strangers. His voice is low and he's mostly talking down at the table so it's not like anyone can hear him, but even so Dean hates having these kinds of conversations out where everyone can see. He guesses he should probably be grateful; at least they're not in the middle of a hunt.

"I remember all of it. I wasn't lying before, but it's kinda like waking up, you know? Everything is all jumbled, but you remember this one specific thing." Dean doesn't know; never remembers his dreams but he nods anyway. Sam doesn't seem to notice, just goes on talking to the table. "And that one thing leads to the next and the next. You follow the thread back until you remember it all."

Dean stays quiet; stills his hands on the table as if moving might break the spell.

"It was mostly about you, about baiting you. She wanted you to take that shot so bad. And she was just so angry at everything. Pissed at us for sending her to hell, pissed at her father for making the deal with dad, pissed about her own orders not to go after me. The demon's got a bigger plan for me going on here, and Meg wasn't a part of it."

Sam slides forward in his seat, leans back with his eyes still fixed on the same spot. Dean's never seen him look so blank.

"There was this guy in Lubbock. She spent the whole day there laying out a fake trail for you," Sam slides off topic, like he needs to build up to this. "Walking around town, harassing the store clerks and this girl at the library, setting up traps. Didn't kill anyone though, wanted them around to tell the tale in case you came looking. And this guy walks up as we get out of the library and he looks kinda interested.  She starts laying it on thick, I swear it was every trick I've ever seen you use on a mark."

Sam lets out a soft snort of laughter at that, more cynical than amused. " We headed back to his place and just."  There's a long pause.  "He kept fucking talking, wouldn't shut up the whole goddamn time. And she played right into it, laughed and just let it happen. I've never. Jess would sometimes, y'know, with." Sam flicks a finger up, half caught between a nervous twitch and a gesture, only giving Dean the vaguest idea of what he's talking about.

The food comes then, gives him time to unravel everything Sam's said.

They both mumble out distracted thanks to Lydia, old habit to not piss off the woman handling your food. Once she leaves they poke at their plates, going through the motions of pouring condiments and assembling burgers. Sam doesn't even feign interest in his food; picks up a fry and uses it to swirl patterns in the ketchup.

Dean can kind of work out some of what Sam is saying. It gives him chills to hear about Meg laying trails for him, walking around in Sam's body and setting up her string of damning evidence. Even if he technically knew that was what was going on, hearing the details makes it real in a way that it wasn't before.  There's no room for the happy delusion that Sam was asleep the whole time.

He can't quite work out the next part though. Doesn't understand why some guy who won't shut up is the worst part of the situation, not when the scale is tipped by demon possession and cold blooded murder.

"She thought it was boring. I kind of...went away. Just ignored everything. The guy walked away fine, just a quickie with a stranger. No harm no foul."

"He raped you." It's surreal, all of it. Sitting here and talking about this over fries.

"She wanted it."

"You didn't."

"Doesn't really matter does it?" Sam says.  Dean is so tempted to reach across the table, grab Sam by the neck of his shirt and shake him until his teeth rattle out of his head.  He doesn't.  "It wasn't enough for her. So the next time. Next was Terry. Grabbed him outside a bar and I just. God, I hurt him. I could feel everything, and she knew it. That was fun for her."

It's not lost on Dean how pronouns are flipping around, getting scrambled up until Sam is the villain and Terry is the only victim; Meg becomes an amused bystander in Sam's memory.

Sam is picking at a crack in the table, inconsistent little _snap, snap, snap_ as his fingernails catch and release on the chipped surface. He closes his eyes and breathes out, resigned.

"It felt good. And it wasn't just the one time, not a fluke thing. I hurt them, I forced it and I know that wasn't totally my fault but I fucking _got off_ on it. Whatever Yellow Eyes did to me, to all the kids like me, it's not just the visions.  It's more than that.  He finds a way in and he turns us into-"

"Sam."

"- something dark, killing people like Max or -"

"Sammy!" Sam's eyes are open now, staring at Dean and completely lost. "You are not going dark. C'mon man, we've been over this. You're not allowed to, not on my watch. And I know it's not what you want to hear, but sometimes your downstairs brain doesn't give a crap about the circumstances."

"What if I've already started to go down that road? We run around killing things, lying to people and running scams, stealing. Sometimes when we're on a hunt  there's this adrenaline rush and I don't even care what it is I'm fighting, I just want to rip it apart. It's just rage. All that hatred and violence, and what if I like it?"

"Yeah and what if there's a big difference between killing evil sons of bitches and actually being one? Christ, Sam. You don't even know if what you felt was real. You were possessed by a demon strong enough to crack a devil's trap in half, we don't know what kind of mojo she might've put on you. Maybe she was making it feel good. And on the off-chance that it wasn't her? You're not the first guy to be forced to come when he didn't want it."

Dean knows all this like the back of his hand, growing up perpetually on the shady side of the tracks had given him plenty of experience with the victims of the world. Sam had always been protected, insulated. Maybe not as much from the supernatural crap but definitely kept away from the more mundane by-products of poverty and bad neighbors. Still, it's a surprise to hear that four years at Stanford and god knows how many student awareness campaigns had never offered any high minded insights into the emotional fallout of a sexual assault.

Then again it's always easier to remember a bullet list of facts than actually understand them, especially when everything is so immediate and personal.  Leave it to Sam to throw common sense out the window and decide he has an evil dick.

"None of that stuff really matters,"  Sam argues.  "Fact is if it wasn't for me, none of those people would have gotten hurt."

"You don't know that either. Meg crawled outta hell somehow, and if it wasn't you she would've just picked up someone else."

Lydia chooses that moment to stop by, gives them both an unimpressed look at the untouched plates of food.

"Something wrong or you want that wrapped?" She asks in a tone of voice that makes it very clear what happens if option number one is the answer.

"Wrapped up, please. Been kind of a rough day, you know how it is," Dean tries to explain.  God forbid they insult diner food.

Lydia just shrugs, _whatever_, and snatches up their plates. Two minutes later she's back with styrofoam boxes and a check.

Out in the parking lot Dean nudges Sam, "I'm beat. What d'you say we find a place and crash?"

"I could drive," Sam offers without any enthusiasm, which is just plain wrong.

"Nah. It's not like we're on the clock. We'll get an early start tomorrow and check the local obits for a case."

*

The next morning, Dean wakes up with Sam's head pressed into his side, right underneath his arm that's hooked up under the pillow and loosely wrapped around his bowie knife. Dean's not even sure how Sam managed to sleep like that, his feet must be hanging off the end of the bed. Hell, maybe his knees too, the kid's a freaking giant.

Dean pushes up on his elbows, just enough to peek down at Sam, who is curled up on his side. His chin is tucked down against his chest, arms curled up in front and knees bent close. It's ridiculous how small a space he's taking up. Dean turns carefully, slipping his arm out from under the pillow and leaving the knife behind.

"Sam, you awake?"

He rubs Sam's shoulder and gets a muffled groan in response. Sam shifts and stretches out, squawks as he almost falls off the bed.

"Aw sh-" Sam mumbles and rolls over on his stomach.

"You alright, dude?"

"M'fine."

"Right," he says, not believing it in the least.

Dean schooches over and lays a hand low on Sam's back, can feel the heat and a light sweat through Sam's t-shirt. The muscles there are tight, shifting in a slow rhythm with his breathing. Sam's got his head buried in his arms, but Dean doesn't need to see his face to know what's going on. "You're not hurting anyone, Sammy."

Dean rubs up and down Sam's back, pressure just enough to feel the cadence of Sam's breathing pick up. He shifts, moves to get up but Dean puts his weight into it and presses his hand down.  It's not a real hold; they both know Sam could slip out easily if he wanted to.

"You want me to stop, you say the word. But it's not healthy to keep ignoring this."

Sam stays quiet, hips shifting uncomfortably against the mattress. Once Dean's sure he's not about to flee, he lets up on the pressure and starts massaging again. He digs his thumb into a knot of tension just to the right of Sam's spine, years of practice rubbing down women to get them in the mood being put to good use.

He feels the knot give, smooth out under his fingertips. Sam groans and Dean can't tell if it's because he's awesome or because Sam has started pushing his hips down into the mattress for some friction against his dick.

He sees Sam's hand slip down under the covers, the other still clutched tight in his pillow, and awards himself another point.  Dean chooses to ignore the nagging voice asking what kind of fucked up life he leads when brother-assisted masturbation counts as a step in the right direction. Sam needs this and that's the only thing that matters.

He talks Sam through it, rambling words spilling out without much thought behind them; any and all variations of 'shh' and 'it's okay, Sammy' and whatever else comes to mind.

Sam's shirt is bunching up and sticking to his hand, damp with sweat. Anyone else and Dean would slip his hand under the shirt, and there's no one else's skin he knows better better than his own. But he doesn't want to push Sam any more than is absolutely necessary, not with Sam hiding under the blankets and his face buried in his pillow.

So Dean sticks to rubbing Sam's back through the shirt, matches the rhythm of his hand to jerking of Sam's hips.  He stops and just maintains contact when Sam's movements become too erratic.  When Sam comes it's almost anticlimactic.  There's a sharp intake of breath and a small shudder, and he goes completely lax against the mattress.

Sam's breathing evens out slowly, turning his head to the side away from Dean to get air. Dean shifts his legs, bends one knee to give his own erection more room, he hadn't even noticed;  had been too focused on Sam.

He gives Sam a final pat on the shoulder, hopes it conveys something along the lines of 'Hey little bro, no biggie.'

It's probably a lot to ask of a pat on the shoulder, but Dean's always been spot on with the body language. He hits the shower, rubs one out with practiced efficiency and absolutely does not think about the soft sound of Sam's little gasp as he comes.

*

Breakfast is predictably awkward. The only good thing about it is they both have their appetites back in full force, starving after having skipped dinner last night. But Dean should've known Sam wouldn't take his friendly shoulder pat at face value.

"So uh. Thanks for, you know," Sam says between forkfuls of scrambled eggs.

Dean is so not having this conversation.

"You want to thank me, then buy me dinner, bitch."

Bobby calls back halfway through breakfast. The guy behind the counter clears his throat and tosses an annoyed look up at the 'no cell phones' sign. Dean waves him off and heads outside with the rest of his coffee.

"Gimme some good news, Bobby."

"Sorry, I got nothing, kid. There's all kinds of amulets and spells, but they all require some serious dark magic. You can buy the amulets, but they're rare and expensive as all hell. And I hope I don't gotta tell you dark mojo like that always has some serious consequences."

"So basically we've got diddly squat and we might as well take a sharpie and devil's trap our asses?"  There's a moment of silence as they both think that one over.  "You're kidding right? Ten seconds and a magic marker and we're all set?"

"It...might not be such a bad idea. 'Course you're screwed if it gets scratched up on a hunt. And let's face it, it's not like you boys are all that careful, either of you."

Dean doesn't rise to the bait. "So we'll put it someplace where we don't get banged up too much."

"Yeah, and that would be where exactly?"

Not that Bobby's making it easy for him. "Point taken. So what can we do, scotch guard it?"

"Magically, yeah. Gimme a bit to figure out how."

*

By mid-afternoon they have a lead on a case out in San Fransisco and a grocery list of  random crap from Bobby.

Some of the stuff they pick up at a grocery store, and a local high school chemistry lab yields a few other necessary ingredients. Sam comes back to the motel with a bagful of stuff that Dean feels compelled to paw through.

"You got my donuts?"

"Uh, no."

Apparently what Sam bought instead was a small bottle of Italian Seasonings, a dozen eggs, a roll of tinfoil, and a box of Cran-Apple muffin mix.

"What the hell?"

"I had glycerol and a mortar and pestle in my basket, and people were giving me funny looks. It's not really the time to be drawing any extra attention to ourselves."

"Yeah okay but. Cran-Apple muffins, really? You couldn't have picked up some oreos instead?"

Sam doesn't really have an answer for that.  Dean is of the opinion that there is no excuse for cran-apple muffins.  The seasoning mix gets chucked in the trash, because when the hell do they ever cook? 

Dean sacrifices half a bottle of vodka to the cause, adding his two cents that any mojo that requires Stoli has his approval.

Shallow cuts along their hands provide the blood they need; the drops gathered on parchment, dried, and burned to ash. They each get their own little baggie of ash. Dean stuffs his in his jacket pocket and tries to ignore how creepy it is to be carrying around bits of burned up Sammy DNA.

"You found a place we can use?"

"Got it. About twenty miles south of here there's a place that closes early. Seems to have new-ish equipment."

"Awesome. Let's bounce."

*

The thing is, even sharpie ink fades. If a devil's trap will lock out the demons, then he's damn well getting it tattooed right across Sam's skin in the most permanent way possible. Dad would flip his shit if he found out, but Dad's not here and that leaves Dean following his standing orders. Well, the first part of them anyway.  The only part that matters.

Of course it's not just the symbol that counts, because nothing is ever that simple. There's an incantation Bobby'd dug  up to make sure the power will adhere correctly to living flesh. There's also the magical scotch guard, to make sure the tats don't get scratched and broken by accident, which is where the baggies of burnt blood and a few of the other supplies come in.

They can't exactly risk letting anyone else draw the tats, and no sane artist is gonna let them use their own homebrewed ink and sprinkle ashes over the punctured skin afterwards.  They could always pay off one of the less sane ones, but that's not the kind of person that either of them wants sticking repeatedly with pointy things.  That leaves them with this: breaking into a tattoo shop at night and trying out their artistic talents on each other's skin.  Dean's not worried.  Sam has steady hands and the design isn't exactly complicated.

Actually, Sam probably has a check list of the whole tattoo procedure and the accompanying ritual laid out in his head. Dean usually prefers things more ad-hoc; make sure you have the all the shit you need and then take each step as it comes. Dad had always shied away from spells and magic unlessstrictly necessary.  It's always been Sam's area more than anyone else's. And he's latched onto the tattoo idea like it's salvation.  "Or if there's something evil already in me, it'll be trapped inside," he suggests morosely.

Dean ignores it; they've had this argument three times already today. He knows how to pick his battles.

What's surprising is how normal everything is after breakfast. Got a case, got a protective spell to cast; get the supplies and get on the road. They slip back into step, moving and tandem and not flinching away from contact. Sam doesn't bring up what happened that morning and Dean is perfectly happy to let it lie.

That doesn't mean he doesn't occasionally catch Sam staring at his hands and wonder what the hell it means.

* * *

_Epilogue_

  
Dean still starts sometimes, when he catches sight of the tattoo in the bathroom mirror. He's not used to it yet, dark lines on his skin that he keeps expecting to scrub off in the shower or fade away like a cut or a bruise. But that's one small patch of skin that never bruises, never gets sliced or scraped the way every other square inch does.

He washes his hands and rubs a palm over the stubble on his cheeks, can't shave yet or the electric razor'll wake Sam up. It's still early morning, too early to be awake when you've been up half the night chasing spirits. It's cold for early spring, the crappy motel heater clunking away not accomplishing much, and Dean is hoping to slip back into the warm bed without stirring Sam.

Outside of bed, nothing much has changed. They'd hunted down a couple of werewolves in San Fransisco, and Dean laid the moves on thick for this hot witness that turned out to be one of them. Sam had watched her with mixed admiration and fear; smart gorgeous girl with evil in her blood and he fought so hard to save her.

She fell asleep sometime after 3am during their second all-nighter in a row, sprouting fangs and a nasty expression. They locked her up for the night and could only stare at each other the next morning, shocked and resigned. Sam shoots her full of blessed silver 'cause she begged him to; chose Sam because even when he's standoffish he still comes across as the quiet, sensitive type.

When San Fransisco turns out to be a complete downer, Dean makes an executive decision and books it up to Hollywood, CA. It's glitz and glamor, completely ridiculous and completely removed from their normal lives. Dean steals a tool belt and headset from the set and tries to convince Sam they should wear them out hunting. Sam looks at him like he's an idiot, but he's smiling again so it's all good.

Dean flips the bathroom light off and heads back to bed, does some careful rearranging of limbs to make enough room to lay down 'cause Sam tends to sprawl. Whatever position they fall asleep in, they always seem to wake up tangled together. Or to put it more accurately, Dean wakes up in the same position he's slept in since he was nine and Dad gave him his first bowie knife, and Sam has wormed his way around as much of Dean as humanly possible.

On those special occasions when Dean's gotten injured on a hunt and Sam is obviously worried, he wakes up with Sam stretched out completely on top of him, which is an experience his assorted bruises and potentially cracked ribs never really appreciate. Sam always goes a little pale and stutters out apologies when he finally wakes up and Dean just rolls his eyes and waves him off, chugging down the pain pills and the water Sam hands over like peace offerings. He'd be more pissed about it if Sam's guilty concern wasn't so ridiculously easy to read.

It only takes a minute, and Dean hasn't even started dropping off to sleep before Sam rolls over and flings his arm over his back. They got back at around 4am, in bed by 4:30...by the dim light in the room it can't be later than 7. Definitely need a few more hours.

*

It takes Dean some getting used to, waking up next to a warm body when he's never been the stay-the-night kind of guy. But old patterns come back, a full decade wiped away as they tug at the shared blankets and shove cold fingers and toes against sensitive skin.

Sam still freaks out sometimes when he wakes up hard. Half-awake and confused, it takes a moment for him to recognize the person next to him is Dean. There's only so far he can comfortably go; won't let Dean touch him where he needs it most. Dean settles for talking him through it, whispering reassurance and pressing his lips to the side of Sam's face while his hands trace over Sam's arms and shoulders.

Sam always offers himself up after, leans over with his mouth open and his hand snaking down under the covers to the hem of Dean's boxers. Dean swats his hand away, won't take advantage like that even though it gets harder to do every time. There's something terrifying and new building between them in those moments, Dean's hand working frantically as he cranes his neck back to meet Sam's eyes.

They always need time to decompress afterwards. They jostle against each other in the bathroom, trading shifts in the shower and at the sink without a word. By breakfast everything settles, boundaries are reestablished and they're harassing each other over their food selections and swapping newspapers back and forth.

Between the tattoos and the hex bags, Dean feels a little more comfortable letting Sam out of his sight. Sam has picked up the nervous habit of pressing his hand over the tattoo, like he's some cheap romance novel heroine with a heaving bosom. Dean adds it to his mental list of evidence that Sam is secretly a girl trapped in a big boy's body, but doesn't ever mention it because it's kind of ...on the nose and Dean's not that much of an asshole.

Nothing else changes. They hunt, they eat, they drive. And if every once in a while Sam throws himself into a fight a little too hard and too fast, Dean doesn't waste much time worrying about it because he's too busy diving in right after him to cover his back.

* * *

  


_  
I sought my soul, but could not see  
I sought my God, but my God eluded me  
I sought my brother, and I found all three.  
_\- William Blake, 1757-1827_  
_


End file.
